


A Glorified Screw (or: Five Times Joe Kissed Billy, and One Time Billy Kissed Joe).

by jar



Category: Hard Core Logo (1996)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:20:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jar/pseuds/jar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At least six kisses, a whole lotta love and a considerable amount of blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Glorified Screw (or: Five Times Joe Kissed Billy, and One Time Billy Kissed Joe).

**1\. hypnotising chickens ('85)**

The strung-out merch kid holds up an empty cardboard box and gives them a thumbs-up as they pass. Joe unwraps his arm from Billy's hard-boned, soft-flannelled shoulder to wave at him. Joe's grin is full of teeth and joyous fuck yous.

Hard Core Logo have sold out of every shitty piece of merch Joe had doodled the design for, and every tape they had duplicated and stuffed into a plastic case next to the folded photocopied liner notes he and Billy had spent two hours writing up completely obliterated, cackling when neither of them could remember the lyrics Joe'd written.

Take a shot every time Billy flubs a lyric and replaces it with a nearly-forgotten verse from a hymn he still remembers from church.

Take a shot every time Joe replaces a sentence with thick set letters spelling out a curse word and taking up half the space left.

Take a shot every time they have to call Pipe to remember and he thinks it was something about chicks, tits, beer or leprechauns.

Take a shot every time John comes in for a new beer and glances at his diary coming up with the exact right word.

Take a shot every time Joe looks up across the kitchen table at Billy's bright eyes and wet lips, vision blurring but want clear as glass.

Take a shot every time Joe wants to kiss Billy (and he did, too, they were done by midnight and Joe had been stinking, swaying, piss-in-the-corner drunk).

They'd sold out all their merch and Joe's hangover had lightened around five o'clock when he'd started his third beer of the day.

The bar is packed past capacity (so its maximum capacity didn't much exceed the Guinness World Record for the amount of people you could fit in a VW Beetle, didn't fuckin' matter) and Billy is pressing closer to Joe as they push through the crowd for the stage from backstage. Backstage, quote-unquote, but what the fuck do you call it when backstage isn't at the back of the stage, it's a pokey little space where they've dragged some barstools into the middle of the bar's storeroom and made a table out of kegs and boxes of whiskey. Fuckin' backstage.

Billy's shoulder is against Joe's chest, his hair smells of cheap gel and smoke, a _Billy_ smell, and when Joe looks at him he's got that little closed-mouth smile on, just cool and comfortable.

They climb the two steps up to the makeshift stage together and Billy barges his shoulder hard into Joe's chest, spins away and picks up his guitar. Curls around it like a lover and looks at Joe, grins, his back turned and his face shadowed so the audience can't see. Just for Joe.

Joe grits his teeth to keeps his guts from spilling out between them and flips his guitar's strap over his head. He grabs the microphone with numb hands, happiness and nerves soaked in alcohol roll through him, and it pisses him off. It feels like flying, except he knows it's falling, and he's gonna get one huge fuck you in before the house lights go back up and they hit the ground.

"I've never seen a bigger bunch of cunts in my life," he says with his teeth still bared in a desperate grin and they fly into _Who The Hell Do You Think You Are?_

In the break between songs someone screams out from the back of the crowd: "You're fuckin' faaaags.” Joe can't see them with the stage lights up, but it hardly fucking matters as he grabs the microphone with one hand and gives them a middle finger with the other.

"THANKS DAD! And hey, you'd know you cocksucking c-c-cuuuunt."

Billy plays a little jangling accompaniment for the insult and Joe feels warmer than a gulp of liquor on an empty stomach. He turns and spits at Billy who bares his teeth and leans into it.

The guy calls something else out, but Joe's done with the unoriginal shitbag and hopes he gets crushed in the pit. He takes the bottle of whatever liquor's Billy's swiped from the bar and fills his cheeks with burning, cheap bourbon, swishes it around his mouth and decides to share, spits into the faces in the front row.

The sick fucks open their mouths for it. They love it.

He grins. Between the next songs he'll tell them he's _so sorry babies_ and how they're not really cunts, but y'know, they are. Between this and the next, or maybe he'll string them along and see how worked up he can get them but now, right now, he can only open his mouth and sing and he can only turn around and play to Billy, until Billy looks up and acknowledges him, takes two shuffling steps towards him.

They play with their heads and backs bowed to each other, the air between them the shape of a sick heart.

Yeah, he'll give that waste of crowdspace “fucking fags”.

Joe ducks and leans forward, lands an open mouthed kiss half on Billy's lips, lingers until Billy takes a step back without missing a chord. He could have been aiming for his cheek but he _wasn't_ , he swallows the taste of sweat and smoke and when he backs off Billy bares his teeth at him and follows it up with a spit chaser.

Joe lets his guitar swing and opens both arms for it, takes what Billy's willing to give with a grin.

Crowded fucking place and Billy's the only person in the room.

* * *

 **2\. trainwreck ('89)**

They're listening to some gravel-voiced singer growl out a slow burning, American-country-flavoured song about Death either having no mercy or being a mercy (John's got okay taste, not that Joe's ever going to say that out loud). Joe's having trouble paying attention -- not because the music is bad, but because Billy steals his attention easier than he steals his $1.99 hair gel from the drug store.

He's not actually doing _anything_ , which is exactly what is driving Joe slowly insane. He hasn't been doing anything for the last day and a half, but particularly for the last hour since they stopped (so John that could drive and they could all take a piss). He hasn't been talking, playing, writing, or acknowledging Joe's prods and pokes, words or fingers or pencil tips.

The pencil snaps like a twig and there's a second of silence before Pipe's schoolyard _oooooooh_ and Joe's laughing _what the fuck are you on the rag, Billiam?_ sound in harmony. There's a faint thrum of anger flying somewhere underneath the comfortable cushioning he's riding inside his head, but he ignores it easily enough: it's easier to just laugh. Joe has no doubt Billy would attempt to snap his finger if he used that next.

Billy swings his skinny legs over the bench and stands up, pitching the broken piece of wood out the cracked window.

John spares him a glance in the rear-view mirror, opens his mouth as if he's going to say something, then his eyes go back to the road and his teeth come back down on his bottom lip. He's been chewing at it for the last twenty miles and ignoring them all with a desperate intensity. Joe's attention is briefly divided; Billy lies back down on the bench without saying anything, settling his hat over his face as he disappears behind the wide brim.

John's hands are clenched on the wheel tight enough his knuckles are white, and Joe knows it's to stop his hands from shaking like they have been all day. He damn near pissed on Joe's boots in the bathroom.

So he lets Billy continue to be an insufferable asshole for reasons best known to himself and tells John to pull over.

"What's up?" Pipe says, as they pull onto the gravel at the roadside.

"Tallent's turn to drive," Joe says. "Up, Billiam."

"Pipe wants to drive," Billy says from under his hat, without moving.

"No I don't!" Pipe protests. "I just fucking drove for _six hours_." He pauses and narrows his eyes at Joe. "Why can't _you_ drive?"

"Guess," Joe grins at him.

It _is_ Joe's turn, but he is far to stoned to drive.

Billy throws his hat at Joe and Joe knocks it away as it comes at his face. Knocks it away with his forehead. Close enough.

And yeah, alright, maybe that's why Billy was in a _mood_ , but it wasn't as if he hadn't left his shit on Joe's bedside table. If he's pissed at Joe he needs to say it. Joe wants him to say it. He can scream it. He can even have a free shot, but he can't fucking have silence.

Not the _nothing_ , where he won't look at Joe head-on. Like Joe's invisible, right in front of Billy and not there. Like time-travel, but not good fucking times.

Billy stands up and Joe smiles up at him and waits to be acknowledged with some spit in his face.

Billy steps over his legs and climbs into the driver’s seat. He lights a cigarette before he turns the keys.

"Sorry," John says faintly, and Joe hears the percussive rattle of a bottle of pills.

Joe ignores him, and watches Billy's hands as he puts the van in gear, long callused fingers capable and quick. Joe feels a wave of anger wash warmly over him, damping his high.

He dodges baggage and amps and scrambles into the passenger seat. Billy glances sideways briefly, eyes passing over Joe as indifferently as they do over the snow streaked landscape. He blows smoke out of the corner of his mouth and Joe breathes it in.

Joe hunkers down in the seat, stretches and yawns theatrically, slumping and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Feel like I could fall asleep," Joe says. He flops an arm theatrically and lets it loll by his side, squints his no doubt bloodshot eyes at Billy's passive profile. He's sobering up, in actuality, but he's still tired.

Silence, silence everywhere and not a word for him. Billy smokes and drives and doesn't look at him.

Joe watches the road spiral out around them in the cross-eyed glow of the van's headlights for a long time, until he can't sit still any more.

He gives in with a theatrical sigh, straightening his back and straightening up.

The corner of Billy's lip twitches around the cigarette.

"Bastard," Joe says.

"You'd know," Billy replies quiet and husky, cigarette and sleep and disuse colouring his voice the perfect shade to make Joe's anger cool.

Joe leans into his shoulder, catching the smell of sweat and cigarettes and hair gel, Billy. He pressed his chin into Billy's shoulder, the hard curve fitting under his chin.

Billy's shoulder shifts with the wheel, but he doesn't shrug Joe off.

"Gimme a smoke?" Joe mumbles, jaw clicking against Billy's skin.

"Give me back my weed," Billy replies, still quiet.

Joe plucks the cigarette from his lips and Billy lets him.

He watches Billy, close enough the blonde stubble on his jaw blurs, and glances out at the road, and Joe reaches out to make a stupid fucking joke about what would happen if he covered Billy's eyes, like look-ma-no-hands --

The fucking van's always drifted to the side -- Billy's hands clench on the wheel white knuckles peaks -- Joe jerks back into his seat and his arm goes to Billy's chest and he hears the _thud_ of his forearm meeting skin (not wearing a fucking seatbelt) -- no it's not his arm meeting skin it's the van wheels meeting the ditch at the roadside and the incline and the machine-gun fast _fuck fuck fuck_ from the backseat rattles around as harsh as the teeth in Joe's head -- there's a fucking _tree_ \-- ah shit.

The impact sends something heavy flying across the dashboard, and the noise of Billy's window smashing is lost as the van's nose collides with the tree and they come to a whiplash stop that clicks Joe's teeth together hard.

The silence is sudden, engine dead, underlined by a low groan from the back. Joe looks down at Billy first, he's still gripping the wheel but is leaning towards Joe because Joe's fingers are clenched hard in his shirt front holding pulling him in and keeping him still. "Billy."

"Fuckfuckfuck," Billy says quietly, through clenched teeth. He looks up at Joe. "Fuck. I'm okay." Joe loosens his fingers through sheer force of will and Billy straightens up with is hands still on the wheel.

"Pipe? John? Rollcall, you assholes, talk to me," Joe twists in his seat. The mess of gear is tumbled all around the back, but Pipe's still where he was belted in snoring, with his arms up shielding his face.

"I'm good,” Pipe mumbles into his forearms.

John looks fine, Joe takes him in quickly head to toe, he's stiff as a board and his eyes are wide. He doesn't blink for long enough Joe's going to climb over the seat and make sure he's not impaled on something, a fucking bottle of Jack embedded in the back of his head. The driver's side door creaks loudly and slams, the remaining glass from Billy's window falling with little ticks that harmonise with the crackling hiss of the engine, and John jolts like he's been given a shot of adrenaline to the heart.

"You okay?"

"Sure," John says, abruptly blinking, and the one word comes out absurdly casual. Pipe climbs out the back and shoves the rear doors wide open.

Outside the van, Billy is screaming _fuuuuuuck_ raw and angry, really tearing a chunk out of his throat, violent like Joe's only ever heard a handful of times before, off-stage.

Joe gets out Billy's door, and tastes blood the second he stands still. He runs a finger along the inside of his mouth but it's just he's bitten the inside of his cheek. He presses the sliver hanging skin between his molars and tugs it off, tasting copper.

The van's already stubby hood is dented where it rests against the tall pine, and for a second Joe just stands there sucking the blood out of the cut in his cheek and thinking how utterly fucked, and how fucking lucky, and the legend they'd just narrowly missed becoming, brains spattered across the dashboard spelling out _rock and roll_.

He turns around and Billy's already got a cigarette in his frowning mouth, and his eyes are bright and angry. Joe's surprised to find he's got a shred of self preservation left and looks away. He catches John looking shaky and contemplating the drop from the van's back doors to the gravel slope its rear end is still resting on. He scrambles up the slope and helps him down.

* * *

"You don't need a fucking ambulance John you pussy, just pop another pill," Billy snaps. He kicks the nearest object, the plaster Jesus Joe'd stolen from a roadhouse laying in a pile of gravel in glass, and slams his hand down on the van's door because there's no window to punch, his fingers curling over where shattered glass still clings to the frame. He jerks his hand away and hisses in pain. Blood runs over his clenched knuckles.

John just shakes his head, a little too hard and a little too long. John's been on a slow cycle of uppers and downers and big pills and little and no motherfucker was convincing him it was time to maybe see a professional, a shrink, and so long as his keel was more even than that one time in Regina where he stacked all the gear against the doors of his hotel room and wouldn't let anyone in, well what the fuck. Joe can't force him to do shit.

He's taking something now that's been keeping him calm enough but it's not going to last. Nothing does.

"Hey," Joe says and picks his way over the gravel that's studded with glittering glass.

"Fuck _off_ ," Billy says with his eyes and his fists screwed shut, and Joe waits it out while Billy just breathes.

Joe can hear John scrambling up the loose gravel of the slope, he watches him dragging his army surplus duffle out of the van and fumbling through it, throwing clothing across the dirt. He comes up triumphant with his bottle of non-prescription prescription meds and pour some into his shaking hand. Joe's got no fucking idea if John's taking too much or too little, but whatever he's doing it's not working right.

Joe would like to give more of a fuck, but his guitarist is bleeding a fucking lot from his dominant hand and that's a little more worrying than yet another drug dependence in their merry band of fuck-ups. Billy's opened his eyes again.

"Let me take a look," Joe says and reaches his hand out, palm up (his elbow twinges and he adds it to the ache in his jaw and the cut in his mouth on his list of minor injuries). He knows if he grabs at Billy right now he'll only get an empty hand and a face full of vitriol and spit for his effort.

Billy holds his hand out and unclenches it slowly, his uninjured hand stays a fist by his side. His knuckles fit snugly in Joe's palm, warm and wet with blood. Billy breaths in deep through his nose as he uncurls his fingers. They echo each other's curses as they see the piece of glass stuck in the meaty part at the heel of his hand.

"Least it's big," Joe says and Billy glares at him. "Because it's fuckin' easier to get out, Jesus am I some kind of asshole or what?"

"Just get it out," Billy says and keeps his eyes on Joe, doesn't look down, like he's walking a tightrope and he'll fall if he sees what's waiting. He's still bleeding gently through his fingers and through Joe's, a few drops fall onto the gravel and glass on the ground.

"Count of three," Joe says and makes sure Billy's looking in his eyes as he says, "One," and yanks it out, fingers slipping on the slick surface and wincing as it comes away surprisingly easy, barely stuck at all, and nicks his thumb just under the nail, "Cuntcunt _cunt_ ," Joe chants between clenched teeth. (So they're blood brothers for the umpteenth time).

"I fucking knew you were going to do that, fucker," Billy says, examining his hand held out in front of his face. The bleeding has slowed enough the trickle down his wrist doesn't reach his elbow.

"Yeah, worked though didn't it?"

"Fuck you, Joe."

"That's the thanks I get for my healing touch?"

"This is _your_ fucking FAULT, you fucking asshole!" Billy yells and Joe rolls his eyes at him and lights a cigarette to cover how badly he wants to lean over and kiss the red right hand Billy's holding up accusingly between them.

"Hey, I wasn't the one driving."

"Don't fucking talk to me," Billy snaps and turns away, yanks a shirt out of John's open bag on his way past it without really looking. He rips the faded fabric in half from the hole already gaping across the middle and wraps it tight around his hand.

He settles his back against a tree by the roadside, up from the ditch the van's landed in. Joe watches him fumble and wince lighting his cigarette while trying not to jolt his hand.

Joe climbs up and sits on the open backend of the van, leans against one of the amps. He glances into the back. All the gear seems to have survived too. Externally at least, and he hopes to whatever ugly pus-faced god supervises touring bands it'll work all when they plug it in tomorrow. If Pipe ever fucking gets them a ride. He brings the cigarette to his mouth but stops halfway, watching his hand shake like he's on a bad comedown. He's fucking cold, too. All the little hurts keep trickling in. In the next ten minutes maybe he'll realise he's broken his leg or some shit, or that they're all actually dead. He coughs and spits a blood-flecked chunk out the back of the van. At least that's normal.

"Hey, Johnny," he calls, leaning around the side of the van. John's shoving the things he's thrown out of his bag back in with a little more composure now he's swallowed his handful of pills. No way they're even halfway to his stomach, but Joe understands. Like holding a glass of whisky in your hand, the moment before it burns the hurt out of your chest is a different kind of golden but golden in itself. John's still clutching the bottle of pills like a lifeline, though. "Gimme two of those," Joe asks, pointing to them with his cigarette clenched between two fingers.

"No, Joe I -- I, I'm going to need them."

"Just two, John, I swear I'll pay you back next time I'm holding."

John looks at him for a good long second and Joe takes another drag of his cigarette, leaves it in his mouth. He glances over at Billy who's watching the road where Pipe'd gone to find them a ride, paying them no attention. Joe holds his hand out and he and John both watch the shake for a while. He smiles at John and breathes smoke out his nose.

"Sure Joe, okay," John says finally and comes up to he presses two pills into Joe's hand, holding on a little too long, squeezing a little too tight.

Joe downs the little blue tablets dry and swallows against their uncomfortable slow stutter down his throat. He pokes his tongue into the little copper tasting cut inside his mouth absently as he watches the sun slide down somewhere across the road and attempts to keep from watching Billy. He looks unreal and further away than he is, a silhouette, a shadow, a thick scrawl of felt pen.

So much for keeping his eyes off.

He hears Pipe before he sees him and looks up to see his head appear over the ridge above, gesturing towards the van and wincing, with two deeply fucking uncool looking guys in tow. Joe's never been so happy to see a pair of assholes on khakis and ties before. They've got a ride. Joe locks the back of the van despite the fact the windows are broken.

“I'll stay,” John says, sitting on his re-packed duffle and looking collected. Joe watches him for a second for twitches, and John holds his hand out, steadier than Joe's. Joe grins and raps his knuckles against John's, and John grins back and takes the keys. He'll make sure no motherfucker steals their gear.

They've got a ride.

* * *

John's the bearer of bad news, shuffling into the diner and waving out to the tow-truck who'd given him a lift back from their lot. The van's towed to a lot because it'd broken an axle or some shit that meant it was out for the count. They could pick up their stuff in the morning and that would be some inhumanly expensive amount of money, thanks and please, have a shitty night.

At least the diner is warm, and the coffee isn't _that_ shitty.

The waitress recognises them, but she's trying to be cool. Half the time Joe realises before they do, there's something about the way someone'll look at you. And he's not wearing a hat over his hair, which is usually a dead giveaway. She must have seen them last year, when they rolled through. She tugs the ends of her thick, black dyed hair and keeps touching the one shaved side, like she's just done it, like she wants them to notice. Joe gives her a sarcastic smile. Well done, honey. You're a real punk now. She ducks her head and looks embarrassed.

Billy slides over a few seats from Joe, sitting on the stool right up nearest the cash register where she's hovering, pretending to wipe some stubborn spot on the countertop.

“Hey,” Billy says. She looks up and smiles at him, and Billy smiles back, a reassuring little grin, soft eyed and charming. Prick. “Nice hair,” he rubs his hand along the side of his own head, not quite shaved blonde stubble.

“Thanks,” she says and practically spills her tits onto the counter in front of him, leaning over. “You're like. You're in a band right?”

“Yeah. We're Hard Core Logo,” Billy reaches over and pushes his coffee mug along the counter to her, and she takes it and turns around to fill it up. She brings it back steaming and waves his hand away silently when he makes a deliberate move towards his wallet, with a glance towards the kitchen doors. Fucking Billy, what a whore.

“I saw you guys! Like a while ago, last year some time. You were great.”

“Thanks,” Billy says, tearing open a sugar packet and smiling at her until she blushes.

“Bill,” Joe says in a stage-whisper, “I'm pretty fucking sure punk-rock Lolita here’s seriously illegal.” He turns to her, and her cheeks are flaming now, but she meets his eyes still half-hopeful. “He's not going to fuck you. Unless maybe you've got a cup of free blow behind the counter there.”

Billy drinks his coffee, picking the cup up carefully with his left hand, and doesn't look at anyone for a second.

“You'll have to forgive Joe, like most _Dicks_ , he's not really meant to be exposed to the general public.”

“Ohhh,” Joe says, and holds a hand to his heart like he's wounded. “LADIES AND FUCKING GENTLEMEN, _Billy fucking Tallent_ , he'll be here all night!” Loud enough all six people in the diner hush for a second, before Pipe snorts a laugh and the low murmur of late night conversation crawls back in.

Billy stands up without a word and heads for the door, and Joe gives him a slow round of applause on his way out. When he looks up, the girl's disappeared into the kitchen, the door swinging like it's shaking its head at him.

* * *

Joe takes Billy's abandoned freebie over to the booth John and Pipe are occupying and drinks it. It's good. Bitch knows how to flirt.

"You should go after him," John says.

"Yeah man,” Pipe starts, “go and fucking make nice, I don't wanna be in the room with you two if you don't work this shit out, let alone another fucking van. It's like Mom and Dad are fighting, except there's no fucking way you two are getting a divorce any time soon and I don't wanna get yelled at every time I fucking shift my ass to fart any more," Pipe whines, pointing a coffee spoon up at Joe from where he's sitting in the booth, no longer laughing.

“Well fuck, Pipe, we don't want to fuck you up for life or anything,” Joe says and gets up. He was going, anyway.

"Hey!" Pipe yells after him, "don't tell Billy he's the Mom!" and Joe grins to himself, half because obviously he's going to tell Billy he's the chick at some point, half because Pipe sounds genuinely worried how Billy might retaliate and that makes Joe feel warm and fuzzy inside. You don't fuck with Billy Tallent, not unless your name is Joe Dick.

“Hey, Joe.” John says quietly, “just say sorry. Just say sorry.” He says it slow and even. His eyelids are heavy, but it's late and at least he's not stuttering any more. Joe waves a friendly middle finger over his shoulder, advice acknowledged. Whatever. It'll work out, it always does.

The door chimes irritatingly behind him.

And as he come outside, he sees Billy's back. There's a payphone on the diner's brick wall, lit by a little florescent light in a cage. Billy's curled around it like a lover. He's laughing. "Thanks, Ed. Ed. Fucking _thank you_."

And jealousy buzzes and stings like a tattoo on the inside of Joe's skin. Billy clicks the receiver down and doesn't look over at Joe for a long minute.

"Let me kiss it better," Joe teases and Billy looks at him under his lashes and a cloud of fogged breath and smoke.

He's holding his scratched up hand curled by his side like a cat that's accidentally dipped its toes in a puddle, arch and irritated.

"Fuck you, Joe," he says. "You nearly fucking got us killed."

"You were the one driving, dickhead," Joe points out despite knowing it is exactly what he shouldn't say to get Billy to play nice again.

"I'm not the fucking dickhead that blocked the driver's fucking field of vision, _dickhead_ ," Billy snaps quietly and narrows his eyes which is all the warning Joe gets before Billy's flicks his still smoking cigarette butt at Joe and Joe's dancing like a fucking moron trying to get it to fall out from where it's landed in the collar of his coat. He can feel it hot on his skin as it falls down a tear in his shirt and out onto the pavement.

"Fuck! Why are you such a _cunt_?" Joe snaps, locating the cigarette and only feeling reassured he's not going to catch fire when he's ground it out under his heel.

Billy is smiling when he looks back up, amused and mean, hurt hand held up to his chest.

"I don't know, Joe. You tell me. You're the expert."

Joe raises his eyebrows and feels his face flush. He can see the high spots of cold or anger on Billy's cheeks in the spill of cold light from the payphone. He takes a cigarette from his pocket slowly and flies high on the anger that's itching in his veins. He wants to crush the whole fucking cigarette packet and put his fist though the big inviting glass windows behind him but he doesn't.

It never fucking goes easy, but that's okay. He steps up to Billy and Billy just watches him, doesn't take a step back.

He'll give Billy what he wants: "Got a light?" He waves the unlit smoke in Billy's face then pops it on his lip and waits.

Billy holds up his injured hand and hands his lighter over. Joe lights up, hands it back and snorts a huge lungful of smoke out his nose. It's harsh and good, but it does nothing for the adrenaline storming him like a belated reaction to the crash, and the chorus in his head screaming like he's on stage _hit me hit me hit me hit me **touch me**_.

“Ed got us a bus, Joe. A bus, with a driver.”

"Yeah," Joe says. "Great."

Billy narrows his eyes.

"Yeah, great?" Billy parrots sarcastically, "like he hadn't fucking offered it to you last fucking month, Joe? He just asked me why we didn't say yes before the fucking van ended up roadkill. Why the fuck didn't you say yes? We could have fucked died, asshole. Do you even understand what a monumental fucking fuck-up you are? Why they fuck _can't_ we have a bus, Joe?" Billy hisses, voice quiet but uneven, eyes everywhere but Joe. He gets out another cigarette, fingers fumbling at his lighter until he gives up with a wince and throws it out into the darkness of the parking lot.

Joe's fingers clench into fists by his side and his chest feels as if it's constricting with them. Fucking Ed can't keep his fucking mouth shut when he should.

"You saying I don't think we're good enough for a fuckin' stupid bus, Bill?"

They're _too_ fucking good for a goddamn pussy tour bus with some asshole driver probably some fucking Coca-fucking-Cola bullshit painted over the side of it.

"No, I'm saying you think a dinky fucking van is more _hardcore_ ," Billy snaps.

"Maybe," Joe says and Billy's hit the nail of the head, the cunt, "because it fuckin' is." Because it IS more hardcore in the van; because the stupid stinking van that pulls to the fucking left and nearly left them for dead was _theirs_.

"Yeah, well you'll just have to suck it up because the bus'll be here by tomorrow morning. With a driver," Billy smirks and Joe's sure half the pleasure he's getting from that is how he knows it's grating on Joe that he's going to have to admit in actions if not words that Billy was right, that Ed was right, that he was wrong. At least he's fucking looking at Joe, now.

"Since when do you make the fucking decisions in this band?"

"Since you need a fucking guitarist," Billy says. Their eyes are still locked and Joe's never really wished for Billy to stop fucking looking at him, except right then.

Joe's fist is swinging fast and hard and he catches Billy under his nose, feels Billy's teeth scrape his knuckles.

"Fuck you!" and it's on the tip of his tongue: _well, why don't you just fucking go then. Get the fuck out of my face and the band and let me drink until I'm brain-damaged enough to forget you, you traitorous fucking cunt. **Don't leave me**_.

He's thankful for Billy's retaliatory fist in his stomach winding him and Billy's knee that narrowly misses his chin. His hard-soled cowboy boots crush the toes of Joe's hole-worn kickers and Joe bites the inside of cheek again, right where it's already split, and tastes blood.

"You wish," Billy breathes into his ear, and then they're on the ground, Joe's shoulder against Billy's chest as they land in a heap and Billy yells _fuck_ , the shirt around his hand gone and his fingers grinding into the gravel as he tries to catch himself. Joe puts all his extra weight behind the next punch splitting Billy's lip where it'd already been red and ready; he catches a face full of bloody spit in retaliation, followed by a handful of gravel shoved scraping against his cheek as he tries to wipe the spit from his eyes.

Billy scrabbles to flip them over, he's all taut wiry muscle and hard bone under Joe's weight, his boots grinding gravel nearly as loud as their breathing in the silent night air. Joe's head spins as they tumble and he remembers half the reason his hands are steady enough to hit Billy straight on in the first place is John's little pills, and he feels abruptly too heavy to keep fighting, blood and muscle weighed down with it.

Billy comes out on top and Joe looks up at him, feels his hard thighs tight against his hips, feels his hand bleeding warm against Joe's chest his other drawn back in a loosening fist that drops down by his side when he realises Joe's just going to let him.

Joe has the sudden urge to laugh and it spasms through his chest, comes out a cough that flexes his sore stomach muscles. Billy's sharp knuckles are going to leave him feeling that bruise every time he coughs for the next week.

Billy's shoulders relax gradually, his body shifting in time with the tension between them. It all comes floating down like the drugs in Joe's veins and abruptly, everything feels calm: Billy's right here, shifting in Joe's lap in the dirt. Joe reaches up slowly with heavy arms and grabs the back of Billy's neck, craning his head up and breathing out heavily as Billy leans down harder on the hand he's got planted on Joe's chest, not helping and not resisting, just waiting as Joe bends them both into a shape where their lips can touch. Billy hisses and Joe tastes Billy's blood on his tongue, his lip soft and swollen.

"We're getting a fucking driver," Billy says against Joe's lips. Somewhere in the back of Joe's mind he flips through his permanent record and thinks that introducing Billy to Ed Festus might be the worst thing he's ever done.

And Joe hears what he's saying and knows the shift of Billy's lips is a smile without being able to see more than Billy's ice blue eyes in the piss weak light from the diner windows and the payphone.

They're getting a driver and they're getting a bus because they can have that now; they've made it that far, and Joe ignores the churning in his guts that could just be because Billy'd gotten him good with that left before, but isn't. It's hard to remember what he was worried about when he'd turned Ed down, when Billy presses their lips together again softly, mindful of his own lip but not enough to back off completely. Joe bucks his hips up against Billy

Billy pulls away and shakes off Joe's hand, shakes his head _no_.

"You're still a prick," he says and climbs off Joe, dusting himself off and looking down at him.

"Yeah, well, you're still a cunt," Joe says.

Billy smiles down at him, reaches his uninjured left hand out for Joe to grasp and pull himself up.

That's when it hits him as solidly as any of the shots Billy had gotten in. That'd nearly been it. Finito. The fucking end. A rock'n'roll way to go. _He'd nearly fucking_ and _Billy_ , Jesus Christ.

* * *

 **3\. come on, come on ('80)**

He and Billy have just invented time travel, so naturally Joe's abusing the privilege.

His thigh is pressed against Billy's in the middle of the sagging couch. The fold-out they'd slept on in the band house was equally shitty for sitting or sleeping. Not that Joe had particularly noticed last night. He'd thought ahead and gotten blind drunk to cope with the thin blanket and prominent springs and it'd worked.

Until five in the morning when Billy had elbowed him in the neck far harder than he'd really needed to and Joe had woken up swearing and slapped a hand out reflexively, catching Billy in the mouth.

He'd woken Billy up by drooling down the back of his neck through _no_ fault of his own, they'd rolled together in the sink-hole centre of the bed. It was also not his fault if his boner was pressing into Billy's spine. Billy informed him of his transgression only after he'd rolled them over and climbed on top of Joe, gotten fingers around his throat and paradoxically hissed at him to fuck off as he squeezed.

A completely cheap shot when Joe had just woken up, still drunker than hell on beer and whiskey chasers, and trying to work out whether Billy throwing a leg over his thighs and settling down with a hand on his throat a bad thing or not.

He glances sideways at Billy and rubs his throat. There's going to be a bruise from the wild elbow that'd caught him there. Billy keeps his eyes on the TV, shoving a corn chip in his mouth and washing it down with a swig of lunch-time beer.

Joe pops his cigarette in his mouth and nudges Billy's thigh with his before he puts his hands up.

He's thinking about the first time they kissed.

In front of the couch, in the present, Pipe rolls over on the floor with a groan, apparently just coming awake. He lifts his head off the cushion and the corn chips they'd been throwing into his hair falls to the floor. "What the fuck?" he croaks. Joe smirks around his cigarette and takes a puff without putting his hands down.

"You assholes," Pipe says without too much ire, it was halfway through a three month stretch of touring and they'd worn him down. "What the fuck is Joe doing?" he asks.

Billy pops another chip in his mouth and continues watching the tape on the TV. "Dunno, he's not fucking here is he?"

Joe puffs his cigarette and glances at Billy out of the corner of his eye. Billy sips his drink and doesn't look at Joe.

"I'm _not_ hallucinating," Pipe says firmly, standing up steadier than Joe would have expected. He'd applaud, but he's busy. "I'm not," Pipe says again, but the conviction falls off his face like the rest of the broken corn chips off his shirt and leaves him looking confused. “Any more.”

Joe grins with teeth around his cigarette. Billy doesn't so much as twitch and it makes Joe grin harder.

"That's not funny man! Jesus!" Pipe says pointing a finger at Joe before glancing between him and Billy. Billy shrugs and settles back on the couch, his thigh shifting against Joe's and his elbow brushing Joe's ribs casually, ignoring the space he's occupying like he's really not there.

"Well, Pipe, you know what they say about acid and flashbacks," Billy says sagely.

Pipe stomps out swearing under his breathe.

Joe comes back, plucks the cigarette from his mouth and blows a smoke ring past Billy's face.

Billy graces him with a sideways look. "Where'd you go?" he asks. He drains his beer and Joe watches his lips touch the bottleneck, his throat move.

"Remember in my basement talking about all sorts of bullshit we'd do when we were in a fucked up rock band?"

"No," Billy lies, and looks back at the TV.

"And we talked about groupies," Joe says. That's what they'd been talking about when Billy had asked. He'd still worshipped Joe, Billy the skinny little kid whose parents didn't even allow cartoon devils in the house because they were too _worldly_ , and he'd assumed Joe was cool enough to have kissed someone before. Joe laughs to himself and Billy looks back over at him.

"Fuck you, Billy," Joe says pleasantly, "get on the fucking nostalgia train."

"I am," Billy points at the TV screen, watching an official bootleg (it's not an oxymoron, Joe had given retroactive permission to the girl when he'd seen the quality along with her tits, and she'd given him a copy) of a couple of gigs they'd done last year. She'd edited them together pretty nicely. The screen goes black for a long second as the last note of Billy's guitar screams feedback and dies and white letters come up: HARD CORE LOGO. ROCCO'S BAR. 10/2/80.

Joe watches as the camera zooms in shakily then steadies on his own grinning face, he's sweating and smoking and Billy's just shoved him (he remembers that). He's calling the whole crowd _cunts_. The camera shakes again and the crowd jostles and roils and they start to play, packed in hard to the small dancefloor. He'd rather be watching the Bucky Haight tape they'd picked up at the dank little record store down town.

He looks over at Billy again and shoves at his leg.

"Come on, Billiam. You remember."

"No," Billy says. "You need to work on the bit in _Fuck Off America_ with the," Billy does some air guitar demonstration and Joe watches his invisible fret work. He does, but he knows that and Billy knows he knows that. Billy is being contrary, _cunt_ -trary and he either wants a fight or a reminder and Joe knows which one he'd prefer, though it might lead directly to the other and fuck it. His neck still hurts and Billy's already hit him once today: maybe he'll go for the record.

He grabs a brittle spike of Billy's hair and tugs sharply, Billy grabs his wrist and turns to glare blue death at him.

Joe leans in to kiss him and catches his smile before his lips connect with Billy's teeth, there's an awkward second before Billy tilts his head and lets Joe kiss him. Half the time he wonders if Billy even knows what he wants before Joe shows him.

When Billy shoves at his chest Joe lets himself be moved, lets go of his handful of hair and falls back against the arm of the couch. He hikes his socked feet up on the couch and watches Billy from between his spread knees.

Billy lights a cigarette and rests it on the soft jut of his bottom lip, the line of his jaw is covered in two days worth of fine blonde stubble that Joe knows he's proud of now it's coming in almost evenly, because he is a vain motherfucker. He watches the video a few seconds longer before turning back to Joe.

" _What_?"

"Gimme a drag," Joe says and holds his hand over between his legs for Billy to share the cigarette.

Billy slaps his hand away and Joe's about to tell him he's a _bitch_ , except Billy's climbing to his knees on the couch and leaning over between Joe's. He knocks Joe's hat off with the back of one hand and grabs at Joe's hair, it stings and Joe's breathing in a lungful of smoke as Billy breathes it out against his lips. He keeps his eyes open. Billy let's go of his hair and sets his cigarette between Joe's lips. He leans back, both feet back on the floor and pulls another smoke from the crumpled packet.

Something loosens in Joe's chest; not that he'd actually thought Billy had forgotten. And Joe quite honestly doesn't want to know if Billy's just remembered now, if he really needed the reminder.

"'Fuck Off America', Joe," he says.

"Yeah. All right. Go get your fucking guitar, axe-hole."

"Oh that's funny, Joe. Hardy fucking har," Billy says dryly. He aims a kick at Billy's ass as he gets up, Billy dodges easily, tossing Joe a triumphant grin over his shoulder as he and picks his way around the pillows Pipe had been sleeping on to go get his guitar from the van.

  


* * *

  
 **4\. pretty vacant ('73)**

The light in Joe's basement hangs overhead like a fat orange beetle on a string. It casts an umbrella of weak, warm light that doesn't dispel the dark entirely, but presses it against the ceiling and the walls, into corners and deep shadows.

Billy says the basement needs fixing up, and Joe reasons it's a simulacrum of the stage they'll be standing on soon. You can't see the audience when the house lights go down. You only need to see each other you only need to see your band (they'd have a real band); to aim a cue, a smile, a spit wad (they're spit brothers a hundred times over by the time they set foot on a stage as Peckerhead in their middle school auditorium).

They're fourteen years old, and Peckerhead's been around for a few months.

William Boisy and Joseph Mulgrew, cross-legged in Joe's basement smoking a hand rolled cigarette laced with nowhere near enough pot to get them high, but they feel high, high on the head spins and from coughing so long they nearly pass out. High on huge hits of smoke licking virgin lungs, nicotine sparking receptors and addictions they'll both be stuck with for the rest of their lives. There's a guitar on the floor between them, an almost-decent Fender Joe's mother had bought him at the hock-shop for Christmas and Joe had immediately given to Billy to take care of. On top of its strings there's a creased old porn mag with a blonde on the cover cupping her breasts, the pale pink tips of her nipples poking out next to her pale pink painted nails.

 _Groupies_ : it's an interesting thought when you're fourteen and discovering that you're going to feel permanently horny for the next few years.

 _Sex_ , the mechanics Joe basically knows, there's never been a cone of silence around his mother's bedroom, and though she's never given him The Talk, a few of her boyfriends have tried. Joe goes to the sex-ed classes that Billy's parents don't let Billy attend. (Billy goes to the religion classes that Joe opts himself out of to cement his addiction to nicotine and rebellion and throws rocks at the second story classroom window where Billy sits, every time, so he can see Joe make faces and Christ-poses and mime hanging himself or jerking off).

What it means is Joe knows a little more than Billy right now, and while that changes and changes rapidly in the next few years, right now he's ahead.

Oh and if Joe weren't so fucking admiring of Billy's blue, blue eyes he'd hate Billy for that sensitive, sky-coloured stare that lands him the ones with the legs and the laughs. As it is, he settles for hating the legs and the laughs and making sure to fuck the ones who are certifiably crazy because Billy hates them the most.

What he ignores is the fact that he was the first one Billy won with that look.

More immediate to their lives than sex, though, is the tentative steps before: holding hands is for pussies, but kissing. Kissing is a must.

"But it's got to be awkward," Joe says and feels infinitely pleased with himself when his chest spasms a little but he doesn't cough the smoke out, "the first time. But that's everything right? You weren't great at the guitar first time you played. Who fucking cares," It's not a perfect example because Billy was better than Joe the first time he'd picked it up and Joe had already been plucking away for weeks.

"I guess," Billy says. "Fuck," he adds, like an after thought, and grins sharply. Billy is learning to curse, and he's as dedicated a pupil here as he isn't at school. Joe's had it down since he can remember, but while Billy's family lives in the same shithole neighbourhood as Joe's, they've got God and they've got _rules_.

And boy do they hate Joe.

Joe's Mom _loves_ Billy. Little skinny blonde kid that actually looks more like her than Joe does; Joe's his sperm donor through and through, he's been told enough he's not forgetting any time soon.

Joe wears too much black and his clothes have holes (that hoodlum from down the street), Joe spikes his hair up with his mother's stolen hairspray, Joe who's been out of school for the last week for skipping class to smoke and draw anarchy symbols over the toilet doors (what Billy's parents don't know this time is that Billy had been standing on the toilet while Joe stood outside the closed door lied with a grin, took the rap and the slap from his mother and worn them like a badge stamped _fuck you_ right over his heart).

Joe who borrowed the dusty cross his mother kept in the kitchen drawer next to the scissors and tied it upside down with string to hang around his neck when he'd knocked on the door to ask if Billy was home. That had hurt for a second, a near disaster, because he hadn't thought it through past how fucking funny it would be. To see that lemon-sucking, panicked look on Billy's mother's pretty face, her wide eyes and pursed lips, the bruise running a riot of colour around her eye socket and cheekbone, the small silver cross at her throat she reached her fingers towards unconsciously.

Near disaster, because he'd been banned from coming to Billy's house again and Billy was never to see him again. It had hurt until the first time Billy had turned up at Joe's house next, a painful three days later, and when Joe asked, Billy had pulled out a cigarette he'd stolen from somewhere, put it in his mouth right there on the doorstep where anyone could see and said _I lied_.

For Joe.

Now, Billy lies to come over and practice.

He lies well, too, they're never caught until Billy's ready to be, until he's ready to come live in Joe's room, which he does for months until Joe's mother and her latest cunt of a boyfriend kick them out. Just finished high school and pissing everyone off by spitting in the face of higher learning. There's nothing he needs to know his band can't teach him, music, books, booze and Billy.

The education is hard and real, lessons like not realising why the apartment they find seems like a good deal until winter sets in and they're fighting off frostbite huddling together in the same bed and leaving the oven on all night for warmth because there's no other heat.

But before that, Billy lies to come over and to sit around in the basement listening to a Stooges record loud as they can get it, and smoking too weak joints. This is all before Joe discovers the real thing in Bucky Haight and underground clubs no one ever fucking heard of.

"Fuck," Joe echoes encouragingly and passes the joint over to Billy. "You feel anything?"

"I think so," Billy says and grins and shakes his head a few times. "Kind of floaty. It's cool."

"Cool," Joe says. He maybe feels something too, other than his cough-raw throat and the beginnings of the first of a long line of bloody spitwads forming.

"So how the hell do you know you're doing it right?" Billy asks, and looks up at him under his eyelashes.

"What?" Joe asks and feels himself flush, watching Billy as he watches Joe back, watching Billy run his hands over his thighs like his palms are sweat, or maybe just like it feels good. Joe feels warm all over and wonders for a second if that's just being high.

He shifts, brushing his palm across the ugly shag rug that looks like a mangy Afghan dog but is better to sit on than the cold concrete floor. Billy's looking at him like he wants something. "Kissing?" Joe asks after a second and feels himself flush warm again when he realises what Billy's not asking and Joe realises, _yeah_ , that's exactly what he wants.

He takes a long drag on the joint, pushes the guitar out of the way and leans forward over his crossed legs, crooks a finger at Billy and waits for him to clamber to his knees and shuffles across the rug to him. Billy leans in and opens his mouth, their lips a centimetre apart. This they've done before.

Joe expects him to close his eyes but he doesn't and they watch each other as Joe breathes out his thick lungful of smoke into Billy's mouth and Billy breathes it in. Billy only closes his eyes when he breathes out and Joe watches him concentrate as smoke pours out of his slack mouth, steadying himself so he won't cough.

"Practice makes perfect," Joe says quietly. "You want to?" Joe asks and Billy nods with his eyes still closed, his lips still parted.

Joe leans in and presses their lips together, keeps his eyes open.

* * *

 **5\. thin as a dime ('85 again).**

All you need to know is at this point, a point not so different from a lot of points in your life, is that you're completely fucked.

"Bill. Billiam. Billy. Buddy. Billllllliam. Baby. B-fucking-illiam. When've I ever done anything _daaangerous_." William fucking Boisy, you won't say, even though it rolls around the inside of your head and sits like spit on the tip of your tongue, tempting mischief. That is not buddies.

You savour a sliver of the thrill, a shiver at the thought, because it's something of Billy you own more than anyone else. You don't need to put your fists up to time warp back to when you'd both thrown those old names away and smashed bottles of beer across the pavement when you christened each other, new, different, better.

Yours.

"Saint Dick, huh?"

"The patron saint of COCAINE. And you can get fucked, you lapsed Catholic altar boy, it's not my fault the priests touched you in your no-no place."

"Yet I'm the one going to hell. Go figure."

"Hey, if it helps I'll see you there. Ain't religion grand. Makes me want to piss on a church. Next fucking holy place we pass, I'm gonna make Pipe take a shit on their front lawn."

"Good luck with that."

"Aw 'cause you don't find the idea funny, do you, Saint Tallent?"

"Patron saint of Go Get Me Another Fucking Drink, Joe."

"Want me to bake you a fucking cake while I'm at it? Get in the kitchen and make you some eggs?"

"Yeah, Tabasco on the side. Thanks."

Billy is a grin in haze, shark-teeth in the deep soupy damp air. Cigarettes smoke and steam warm are familiar in your lungs and somewhere deeper in your chest something shifts, something more than the unusual drip fed chunks of red and gold snot.

You protest like the cliché says: too fucking much. You're already up on your feet and pushing the bathroom door open, letting out some of the precious trapped heat to go and get Billy Tallent his beer.

Eight, eight, eight thousand beers later and a bottle of bourbon filched from your own rider (which isn't stealing, but you feel better if you pretend it is, and you aren't sure what they says about you, but on the other hand there's a raised middle finger because you don't give a fuck).

You're unsteady past the beds and your knees feel like jelly shots when you reach the bathroom door again. It takes you a full thirty seconds to work out that you can hold two beers in one hand, and that's only after the five seconds you require to work out you need a spare hand to tilt the doorhandle down to get it open.

You're drunk enough you feel like a working paraplegic: your legs are going but fuck if you can feel them.

You're full of metaphors that good you think you should be writing songs but you've forgotten by the time you work out the handle and shove the bathroom door back open, you've forgotten you've forgotten by the time you're sitting back down on the closed lid of the toilet seat.

Billy fucking Tallent, the skinny little blonde with the junkie thin, junkie strong arms and clever, long fingers, is watching TV in the bath. You blink and refocus your eyes with an effort, watching the bubbles clinging to the blonde hairs on his skinny knees when he pulls them up out of the water.

You peer unsubtle and unacknowledged over the rim of the tub, leaning precariously close to falling off the toilet. Besides the snowy mountain range of his knees and the wet rope of his arms, Billy's body is a blur under the water and the sparse censorship of the white foaming bubbles. Up further the water laps gently, nearly up to his collarbones as he slumps into it.

You drop the beer with a plunk and a bigger than anticipated splash, and you can't help but laugh at Billy jerking in on himself as the cold bottle hits his stomach, the warm water exploding in a tidal wave and spitting across the room like an audience at a gig. Billy's cigarette hisses out as it's doused in water.

He spits the damp stick of tobacco into the bath with a huff.

You bark a final laugh at the dismissal, the lack of fucks given.

"We're a rock'n'roll cliché."

"You're the one that ripped the TV off the wall."

"You're the one that said 'entertain me, Joe'. If they don't want the furniture moved they should bolt it down."

"It _was_ bolted to the fucking stand."

"Bolt it down _better_ you cunt-radictory cunt, shut up and watch your stories."

"Seen it. Bored."

He fumbles with his wet toes against the TV until he hits the off button and the screen blinks out, soap bubbles running down the black plastic.

You remember, abruptly, with the idea of electricity and water and death, that there was a song eating away at your brain stem like Pipe on a particularly good sandwich, all disgusting delighted sounds and animal focus. Billy though, he isn't listening to you right now. Not about songs.

You think it could be because this song, it sounds maybe like something Bucky Haight might sing, his smack thin fingers are inside your brain. His music jangles something loose in you sometimes, helps process pure fire, brimstone anger into words.

Billy's not hearing it though, but that's all part of a typical Hard Core Logo song writing moment. Part of the build up to building something new. Eventually, you wear Billy down and he listens to you, and you both pluck nonsense riffs out on your acoustics, adjusting each others fingers with cigarettes clenched between knuckles and teeth.

Then you present a shell to John, usually, usually it's just a thin flimsy thing, thin as the paper it's scrawled over. John helps fill it out, gives its beating heart a jolt with a bassline and eventually it's approved by all the important assholes in the band. Et viola, master-fucking-piece.

Billy lights a cigarette in the damp blue twilight of the bathroom, and it glows like a lighthouse at the edge of a cliff.

You ignore it.

His eyes meet yours and you watch his arm slip over the side and dive under the water, slow down his belly and into the deep.

Takes you a long, drunk second to realise what the fuck is going on.

 _Bil-ly fuck-ing Show-off._

You tilt your head back, screws your eyes shut and let yourself spin in the dark. Sometimes that's a fun game, rolling on the head spins like a funfair ride.

You ride it for a long second to tune of water lapping arrhythmically at the edges of the tub (he builds up to a rhythm, it's not like you haven't heard this before, this bit is just a tease). The water is deceptively gentle, softer even than the breath bouncing off the tiled walls, yours and his. You think you shouldn't be breathing this hard, not hard as Billy, not this dog-pant, but you are and it's about as controllable as the periodic tilt-a-whirl of the world.

You open your eyes and tilt your head forward, blink the stars from your eyes. You're still in the dinky little bathroom, blue tiles and white walls, the high sided tub that'd fit two people in it if one of them was a skinny fuck (like Billy) and the other wasn't so fucked drunk he'd drown in six inches of water (like you).

The stupid TV's still sitting squat and square and threatening on the edge where you put it, dark faced and still damp where Billy had switched it off with his toes.

Billy.

Billy's got one knee pulled up, a tease within a tease, obscuring your view of anything but the long strong line of his arm, the knot of his shoulder where his muscle jumps and jerks gently in time with his hand.

When you tear your eyes away from his shifting skin, you meet his eyes and you feel the tug in your spine and your balls, useless as that is to you right now.

He's watching you, too, is the thing, and you wish that didn't mean a thing to you, but it does.

You try on a smile, but it falls down sloppy and fake. He shifts so both his feet are firmly on the bottom of the bath, legs only fractionally bent so the uneven islands of his knees breach the water. When he smiles, it's what you wanted to do but couldn't, a little white line drawn in the sand, a little distance in the curl of his lip, a little painful, so fucking hot.

When he lifts his hips, soap bubbles cling to his knuckles and slide off his cock, hard and arrogant as the snarl on his lips. The water sloshes over the side on a particularly vicious stroke and you only realise your cigarette has burnt down to the filter when your fingers blister.

You flick the butt into the increasingly large puddle in the middle of the floor and curse absently.

Billy laughs, face turned towards you, and then groans, and you forget burnt fingers quick as you forget every single time you've gotten your fingers burnt because of Billy.

You forget there's a world outside and Billy's eyes drift shut. You watch him bite his bottom lip, pulling it under his teeth at the corner, sucking the full line of flesh into his mouth for a long second. You watch him, his cheeks flushed from warm water and sex. He looks like he's running a fever and you feel like you are.

You twist on the toilet seat like a tree towards the sun, the toes of your boots hitting the side of the tub, the cramped space is familiar, like every motel bathroom you've ever been in.

The movement sets you back on the tilt-a-whirl, your head like a big cocktail someone's taken a swizzle stick to. You still the world with your hand on the edge of the bathtub and it takes a frustrating second for your head to catch up, but when it does Billy's skinny fucking legs and hard cock right are fucking there, his knuckles slick and his dick red and hard, his grip not fucking fooling around. Just fucking.

Fucking unfair.

Everyone's jerked off in the van or the bus, you've even heard John's furtive salami slapping, sounding embarrassed and sorry even in the little hitches of his breathing. There's a special place, though, somewhere in the back of the current sickening carnival ride of your mind that's reserved for the times Billy's been caught out.

There's one that's as well worn as a favourite record: Pipe and John were passed out cold and Billy had kicked the blanket off and taken his fucking time on the backseat, catching your eyes in the rear view mirror deliberately, while you'd had to keep your hands on the wheel.

Now, though, you're fucked. You're so fucking fucked you can't _fuck_.

You can't fucking appreciate the moment to the fullest, despite the frisson of interest that shoots down your spine and tugs at your nuts. You're half hard, sure, but you know from experience you're not getting any harder.

Billy's shifted so one hand's on the edge of the tub, his warm wet fingers sliding against yours where they're still clenched on the rim of the tub.

"We having a good time now?"

"We're having a _ffffuck_ \-- fucking good time. Joe. You're having a good fuck-ing time right?"

You slip off the toilet seat to your knees with the aid of gravity real and imagined, most of it in the flick of his tongue against his bottom lip as effective as fingers through beltloops. You land kneeling in a puddle of bathwater and it soaks into knees of your jeans.

Billy spits out more breathless obscenity, and you watch him squeeze his cock like he's close and trying to will it away for just a second, draw it out for a second, torture for him maybe, but worse for you.

You can't stand it.

You break first, and lean over to lick the sweat and steam off his upper lip. The sleeves of your sweater soak from the torn cuffs upwards until they're heavy, tugging your arms further into the water, tugging your hands at his skin, the insides of his thighs as slick, about the only soft part of him, your thumbs brush his balls and he groans against your mouth. You blame gravity again.

You kiss Billy until you feel him lose it, water sloshing and slapping over the sides of the tub warm down your chest and soaking the crotch of your jeans like you've lost it too, a sad damp tease, but when it ends you get something after all: Billy kissing you back.

* * *

 **6\. black cats ('89 again).**

Pipe's ass is hanging out the bus window, bared to a world that's either profoundly ungrateful or profoundly amused. It's hard to judge the emotional tone of car horns. Joe’d laughed until he coughed for the first five minutes, sitting on the bus's L-shaped couch with Pipe's head hanging down next to him, watching Pipe's face go red as the blood rushed to his brain, covering one ear with his hand as Pipe hoots in tune with every blaring honk that flies past them.

Now it's a little less amusing to him, but Pipe's still pretty fucking cheerful.

"You're going to get frostbitten nuts," Billy says, smiling through a veil of smoke and watching Pipe as he attempts to crane his neck without pulling his ass back inside the bus.

"Yeah? Well you can just suck my fucking sack until they're all toasty and warm again," Pipe says with a cracked laugh.

Billy sucks another lungful of smoke through his little close mouthed smirk and flips Pipe the bird, leaning down low over Joe's knees to shove his hand in Pipe's face so Pipe can properly appreciate the gesture.

When he sits up he catches Joe's gaze and rolls his eyes, and Joe crosses his eyes back and makes a retard face. Billy's happy, and Joe feels like he's been fucking stoned for the last twenty-four hours with nothing stronger in his system than his regular breakfast-beer and Billy's smiles.

Moods in confined spaces spread like the clap (the band is a confined space outside the claustrophobic smoke-overcast bus, too) and Billy's moods are the most infectious of all. Joe rides his little smile like a high and grins back.

It's hard to tell if Pipe's mood is chemically enhanced or just some freakish brainfart; with Pipe it's _always_ hard to tell.

"There were kids in that car," John says from up front, where he's leaning over their driver's shoulder watching the road. "They're gonna need a lot of therapy."

They ignore him.

"Hey Pipe," Joe yells in Pipe's ear before turning and raising his eyebrows at Billy; watch. He waits for Pipe to finish hooting again, accompanying a Morse code of car horns, beepbeep beeeeeeeeep.

"Whaaaat?" Pipe says tuneful as a broken police siren.

Joe reaches up and grabs Pipe in a headlock, shoving him further out the window to give him a little scare, waiting until he hears Billy's wheezing laughter over Pipe's half choked _Joe fuck Joe fucking don't fucking fuck JOE I'm gonna fuckin' diiiie_ and yanks Pipe back into the bus, off the couch and throws him flailing onto the floor, Pipe scrabbling with his pants around his knees, and Billy raising his feet up out of the way, delicate as a cat. Pipe eventually regains enough composure to realise he's inside and not rolling along the tarmac under oncoming traffic.

"Fuck you!" Pipe yells and yanks at his pants, climbing clumsily out from under the shitty plastic table they'd already cracked down the middle. He stumbles down front to sit in the vacant seat next to Asshole Kevin (he's still better than the first driver they'd had).

Billy laughs hard enough he collapses forward, forehead to Joe's knees. He calms down, but doesn't lean back, just turns his head to the side so he can fit the remains of his cigarette in his mouth, takes the final puff with his cheek against Joe's kneecap. He turns and rubs his forehead against torn denim and the skin of Joe's knees.

Pipe's bitching up in the front seat and Joe throws up a perfunctory middle finger in his direction, eyes on the curve of Billy's skull.

A suspiciously fucking good mood, Joe thinks and drops his hand down slide his fingers through the short hair at the nape of Billy's neck.

"See how fucking fast you can get a new fucking DRUMMER Joe you ASSHOLE, ARE YOU LISTENING ASSHOLE?"

"Shut the fuck up, Pipefelcher," Joe snaps without looking, and feels as much as hears Billy mumble the same against his leg before he pushes up against Joe's fingers against the back of his neck and sits back on the bench. He's watching Joe

"What?" Joe asks, because Billy wants him to. Billy just slides down against the back of the seat, his shirt riding up and his hair dishevelled from Joe's hands, and kicks his legs up and settles his socked feet in Joe's lap. "Billiam, _what?_ "

"It's a secret," Billy singsongs, smiling at Joe like the Cheshire fucking Cunt.

Joe narrows his eyes.

Billy kicks his feet a little, his heals digging into Joe's thighs. Joe curls his fingers around one of his ankles and watches Billy watch him back with content, half-lidded eyes.

"Did you get the jack from that Karen-Krystal-Kelly chick? Because I told you she looked dirty--"

"No, Joe, because _you_ fucked her, and her name was... fuck, who cares."

"Aw yeah," Joe says. "She was dirty, too," Joe sniffs his fingers theatrically and curls his lip, Billy laughs quietly. "So are you going to tell me your seeeecret? You fucking fourteen year old girl."

"Yep," Billy says and doesn't elaborate.

Joe presses his knuckles to the arch of Billy's foot and abruptly wants a cigarette, but he takes a lungful of the soup of second hand smoke floating around the bus and plays the game.

"You going to tell me _now_ , Billiam?"

"No," Billy says. "Light me a cigarette."

They smile at each other.

* * *

They've got a bus _and_ a hotel, which is just fucking nuts, but it keeps Tallent happy and Joe can't say he hates hotel mini-bars, at least. Of course, he has to take the batteries out of the smoke-alarm in his room, but what the fuck anyway.

Billy and Joe still share a room, though, because it makes sense and Joe flat out refuses to get a single.

They're a little buzzed on kiddy-sized sampler drinks and Joe is slumped into one of the two puffed up arm-chairs they've dragged out the sliding door onto the balcony of their room. The view is classic fare, an ugly swimming pool full of piss and leaves and beyond that a stunning panorama of a parking lot studded with shiny business cars and broke down bombs, and one big ugly fucker of a bus.

Cars whizz past on the highway, comets of light with the streetlights as stars, fixed yellow blobs.

"So fucking tell me already," Joe says, holding out the little bottle to Billy and thinking about the bag of coke burning a hole in his pocket.

"I don't know, Joe," Billy says and takes the half finished bottle and tipping it back. He leans back against the balcony railing, one foot up propped on the seat of his chair.

"I don't knoooow Joeee," Joe mocks sarcastically, "Tell me, Tallent, or you can go fucking sleep in the bunk that Pipe desecrated last week."

Billy rolls his eyes at the empty threat, then points at Joe the miniature liquor bottle dangling between two fingers. "Okay, deal time. Share and I'll tell you."

Joe turns and blows out his lungful of smoke towards Billy, watches as he blinks the sting from his eyes.

"Share?" he asks, trying on virtuous confusion for size and coming off about as innocent as a twenty-dollar truck stop whore, which is an improvement on what he'd predicted.

Billy calls the lie with the quirk of his lips, and drops both his feet back to the ground, steps up close do his knees are brushing Joe's.

Joe looks up at him with his eyebrows up, a silent dare.

Billy just smiles, kicks Joe's feet apart and plants one knee in the space between Joe's legs, brushing the crotch of his jeans.

He leans in and presses well-trained fingers, long strong fingers, into Joe's pocket. His jeans are fucking tight standing up, but sitting down Billy's got to work to get his hand in, and when he does his fingertips rake down Joe's thigh and his thumb brushes Joe's cock just barely, playing him as easy as an old song.

It's not as if Joe doesn't know what Billy's doing but it's hard to give a fuck when he's half-hard. Billy jerks his hand out as Joe jerks his hips forward, almost painful against Billy's leg, still between his, and Joe sucks back the noise building in his throat.

Billy holds up the little plastic rectangle with its happy bulge of white.

"How did that get there?"

"Shut the fuck up," Billy says happily, and backs off to perch on the arm of Joe's chairs, holding the packet up to the light and watching the pearly white powder shift loosely in when he flicks it. Yeah, it's good shit, and Joe reads the appreciation in Billy's face.

It's good enough shit Joe's double-bagged it with careful paranoia and was attempting to save it for something, something good, but he watches Billy's face and can't think of anything else worth saving it for.

Billy looks down at him when Joe's snakes his arm around his waist and Joe grins as he jerks him down into his lap, Billy flails for a second then settles all hard angles pressing into Joe riding the border between feeling good and hurting (feels like Billy).

"I share, you share, that's our little deeeaaal is it you bogarting prick," and he tightens his arm around Billy's waist as he shifts to get comfortable or as close to as they're going to. He settles in when he realises Joe's comfortable being half comfortable, and this is part of the stupid little deal now.

"Dink," Billy says, anchoring himself with an arm around Joe's shoulders.

"Asshole."

"Cunt."

"Blow me."

Billy's hands work right up in front of Joe's face, right under his nose. He opens the packet carefully and tilts it, lines the furrow between his thumb and index finger shallowly, an uneven line. Billy shakes his head and leans in to lick Joe's lips, not quite a kiss, something less chaste than a press of lips.

"Maybe."

* * *

Some fucking deal.

The inside of Joe's skull is all lit up, beacon fires burning from his head to his cock. Normally it'd be fucking hard to concentrate with Billy fucking Tallent in his lap, but he can't not pay attention to Billy's little secret: "Ed got us a gig for Seymour Stein, Joe. A fucking audition. A meeting."

It takes Joe a second to unstick his mind from where they're going to be ten minutes from now, because he doesn't _want_ to. It takes longer for him to unstick his tongue from Billy's sweat-salty neck (especially when Billy groans just a little, deep and low in his throat).

His lips tingle when he licks Billy's upper lip right under his nose, and Billy shoves his face away. He tugs out of Joe's grip, and after a second Joe lets him go because he wants to push, but he doesn't want the shove right now. There's nothing fun about fighting with Billy on coke, except when he's in the mood for new scars (to be fair, sometimes he _is_ ).

It's like when he'd first called Ed back, dialling the number printed in black and white on that little white card, everything had gone from the fun kind of head spin to the kind that you just know is going to end in blood and puke. Everything was going faster, and after ten fucking years of steady as she goes, it was too fast. Too fucking fast. Fast-fucking Ed.

Billy stands and doesn't pace across the tiny balcony, there's not enough room and he kicks at Joe's feet and knocks their knees together.

"Great. So when he hands me that pen, you think I'm going to have to sign in blood? I hear that's standard in contracts with the fucking devil."

"Stein's not the devil, Joe. Neither's Ed."

"No, he's just an asshole in a suit who works for him. The whole fucking industry is the Devil and you want us to sell our immortal souls. We already got the music, Billy," Joe gestures between them, because that's where their music _is_ , that's where it gets _good_ , "we don't need a crossroads deal."

"--And you said _when_ , when he hands us the pen to sign because you know he's going to want us. You fucking _know_ it!"

Someone bangs on the wall of the room next to theirs, and Joe yells an echoing “FUCK OFF” out across the swimming pool. Billy doesn't twitch at the banging or the yell, ignores both and comes up close in front of his chair to stand between Joe's spread legs.

"We'd go to L.A., record, party, have a fucking _time_ Joe. Roll around in the fucking _dust_ and make real money. _Live_. I want out of this fucking cesspit, Joe. If I have to drive across rural fucking Canada one more time I'm going to start shooting cows out the bus window."

"I like this fucking cesspit."

"We're better than this. We're better than this fucking cesspit, Dick. You're better."

Now, they both know that's a lie.

"Are you hearing me?" Billy asks in his ear, leans down and grabs Joe's face in both hands and kisses him, pulls back and looks at Joe, hands still on his cheeks and forcing his focus in on Billy's black and blue eyes. “You listening, Joe?”

"Yeah, yeah," Joe says. "Ed blah blah fucking something about selling our immortal souls."

"We've got fucking three days to call so Ed can set this up, Joe," Billy says and he's got a hand on Joe's cock through his jeans, fingers squeezing, and Billy won't ask because he never fucking asks.

"Really," Joe doesn't quite make it a question.

Billy pulls away, stands straight and looks down at him with stage-worthy snarl because it's like he forgets sometimes that Joe knows him, _knows_ him like no one else knows him, like no one else will ever ( _ever_ ) know him.

Joe thinks he's about to get Billy's fist in his face but what happens in Billy strips off his shirt in a movement just as violent as a punch.

Billy drops his shirt somewhere beside him and licks his bottom lip, quick. "Fuck it," he says with a smile.

"Don't make it too easy, Bill, I won't believe I've won."

This is the problem.

Joe's got what he wants: this tour vacuum, independence and the price they pay for it, the dirty clothes and dirty cars, the broke-down amps and filthy bars and cigarettes until Joe can't scream without his throat bleeding; Billy singing for him when he has to spit chunks of his lungs, the hotel rooms they're lucky to have and not having them when they decide they want to eat or party hard that week.

It's standing in front of him, shirtless and pale, blue eyed and vicious, ugly expression and beautiful face, stupid fucking spiked up blonde punk hair.

This is a means to Billy, and it's Joe's _end_.

Billy leans over him, hands and knees, doesn't bother this time keeping the knee between Joe's legs from brushing his balls hard and hot. He leans down, his smile sharp and white disappearing as he presses his face against Joe's throat, doesn't spare him teeth when Joe's hands go to his warm chest and find a nipple to press hard against.

“Come inside,” Billy breathes against his skin.

* * *

The bed's half a step behind Joe and feels like someone watching, the feeling in his gut is nothing like what he feels before stepping on stage, but he's got nothing else to compare it to. There's a similarity in the liquor warm roil of his stomach. He's half-hard, and that's familiar too, familiar as the face in front of him.

Billy steps up close and hooks his fingers into Joe's belt loops, a mirror of a move Joe's made on stage and Joe plays Billy's part and lets himself be tugged forward a little off-balance until they're nearly chest to chest, his still covered and Billy's naked, his nipples peaked still from the cold outside, from the fact he's clearly as ready for whatever this is as Joe-- as ready to fuck.

His fingers tighten on Joe's jeans and Joe can feel his knuckles and his cock, hard against Joe's through double denim. They're not on stage now though and there's no guitars slung around their bodies, no illusion of distance, no distance at all. Billy grins at him and Joe shifts his cigarette with his tongue to the corner of his lips, they're close enough together the half burnt cigarette could span the space between their lips.

Billy plucks the cigarette from his mouth and flicks it to the motel carpet, grinds it out under his socked toe, leaving an ugly black mark on the rug.

He's ready for it when Billy shoves him.

He lets himself fall when the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed, bounces a few times on the mattress and feels the urge to laugh rise in his throat. Billy settles his knees either side of Joe's hips and it still comes out half a laugh but it's adulterated by the fucking grind of Billy's hips against his. Billy sniffs against his neck, then licks the skin of his throat pulse point to pulse point like he can slit Joe open with his tongue.

Joe's hands go to Billy's waist, dip around his bare skin, warm, until his fingertips meet over the obvious bumps of Billy's spine, and he can't help dip his fingers down under the waistband of Billy's jeans. Too fast, but no fucking idea beyond take what he can get _now_.

It's not like they were ever hands-off but they've never fucked. Shared a bed (a bench, a couch, a van-floor), sure, but that's buddies. What's a handjob up against a wall with a lip and a bottle of bourbon split between them after a fight with someone, with each other, what's a hand on someone's skin when there's three people in a bed?

It's not the same. It's nothing like the same that Billy's mouth had been on his dick with a chick in the room, and sucking the back of Billy's neck while he fucked someone wasn't the same, if he's got his clothes on it doesn't count, if there's a chick it doesn't count, if he's just watching it doesn't count.

It's inevitable his hands find Billy, drawn like greedy kids towards the front of the stage where they know they're going to get hurt and spit on but they just keep pushing for it because they can't not. It's like gravity.

Like the inexorable drift of his shoulder to Billy's when they're walking through a crowd.

His hands on Billy's hips now, pale skin under his fingers and the dirt under his nails and the tarnish on his rings stands out severely against Billy's skin.

“Get naked,” Joe says, pushing, and the fuck of it is, Billy does. He stands up and pops the button on his jeans, slides them down and off his hard cock, and stands in front of Joe with nothing but a smile on his lips. Joe reads the smile and the tilt of his hips easy as black and white on a page: yeah, you too, I fuckin' dare you.

Joe kicks his boots off and strips. Billy watches him and Joe couldn't give less of a fuck that he doesn't compare to Billy (who fucking does), he doesn't look like a half-starved model, he's always gonna be heavier. Lack of sleep fucks with both their faces, but Billy looks dangerous and deliberate, bruised, where Joe looks fucked up and tired: he's got bags under his eyes they could carry the whole tour in. Coke fucks Joe's skin up, doesn't do a fucking thing to Billy's (but then, Billy doesn't do as much as Joe).

While Billy's just looking, Joe takes the advantage and takes Billy's hand, tugs them both back on the bed, they roll and Billy calls him a cunt, he was _fucking thinking_ apparently, and Joe apologises by letting Billy roll them over and settle back in his lap.

Win fucking _win_ , the head of his dick drags across the skin of Billy's ass and he groans, they both groan. “Yeah,” Billy says, and Joe grabs Billy's hips to steady himself, get more purchase, more friction, but it's his head as well as his body that feels like it's out of control. “Wait,” Billy says.

He hooks his feet under Joe's thigh and leans over the side of the bed, ribs visible, you could play a fucking tune on them, and he comes up with the packet of coke (out of Billy's own pants, Joe notes, not fucking surprised). Leans down with a grin and taps a messy line out across the centre of Joe's chest, powder sticking in his uneven spatter of chest hair.

Billy surveys his canvas. He leans over again, more carefully this time, slow enough he doesn't disturb the blow spilled on Joe's chest.

Joe breathes shallow, hears metal scrap against the bedside table beside them. Billy backs up and the first flash of metal in his hand is accompanied by a paranoid whisper in the back of Joe's head, _knife_ , with as much interest as fear.

It's not a knife, though, it's the key to their room, the room number dangling off of it on a white plastic square. Joe smirks up at him and Billy spares him a glance under his eyelashes before he scrapes the powder together into some apparently adequate semblance of a line and leans in, lips brushing the skin of Joe's chest, his sternum, before he snorts the line, comes up watery-eyed and open-mouthed. Out-of-his-head hot.

It's almost too fucking sweet. He throws his head back and grinds against Joe, a shivering sweat-slick mess of wet-dark hair and flushed cheeks. Smiles. Joe should know Billy doesn't give anything away for free. He leans down but makes Joe work for the last inch between their lips and they kiss-- Joe jerks hard as Billy drags the teeth of the key across his chest.

Billy licks the wicked metal edge, Joe's sweat and white powder on the curl of his tongue. Joe chokes on a _fuck_ , mostly, mostly because that stung and he cranes his neck forward, his skin red-raw in a long line down the middle of his chest like a heart-surgery scar.

Billy leans forward again, flashes the silver metal in Joe's line of sight for a lingering second before he presses the point right next to Joe's left nipple. Joe opens his mouth to ask him what the fuck he's doing other than being a cunt and Billy digs the point in and draaags, a slow stutter as it catches at his skin, crossing the heart-surgery line through the middle and Joe's whole body contracts toward the centre of the cross Billy's drawn. Up towards the point of the key.

His cock presses up against the crack of Billy's ass, head slick against hot skin. It takes a frustratingly long time to be able to press his shoulders back flat against the mattress and there's no way in any fucking heaven or hell Billy hasn't noticed how seriously fucking hard he is against him.

The look on his face says he has. Billy leans down a draws his tongue over the first scratch, tongue almost cold against the feverhot skin of Joe's chest.

"Fuuuuuuuck," Joe screws his eyes shut for a second, until he feels like a cunt and a coward and snaps them open.

"You. Love. It." Billy says, punctuating with sharp little scratches. The last one makes Joe hiss and he knows he's drawn blood without looking. He jerks again but this time it's just his hips.

"Yeah? Like you fucking don't." And he feels more grounded when he shifts his grip from bruise-tight fingers on Billy's hips to his ass and Billy's eyes widen. Joe gropes, squeezes and pulls his ass cheeks apart and Billy jerks this time, looks down at Joe and shifts back so he can lean into him and press their cocks together, a teasing brush.

Joe can't fucking remember what fucking town they're in, what fucking room, anything. Hyper-focussed on Billy above him, eclipse-eyed Billy who's watching him so intensely Joe can't even remember his own fucking name. Billy with blue irises thin a new moon, sweat on his face, his dick against Joe's, brushing his stomach in the hellfire hot space between their skin, slick with sweat.

Billy's mouth is open and wet, and Joe jolts as Billy gathers them together in one long-fingered hand, jerking a clumsy rhythm so fucking hot Joe can't even see for a second, eyes wide open. His hips jerk and he has to grab Billy's hand to stop him or it's all going to be over real fucking quick.

Billy reaches up and lays a rough hand on Joe's cheek, and even through his fucked sinuses he can smell sex. Joe pushes up against the barely-there pressure of Billy's palm against his face, and Billy leans in and lets him bite at his soft bottom lip until Billy buries the same hand in the back of his mohawk and tugs sharply. It's really fucking hard to make himself stop, but he backs off, Billy's hand still wrapped in his hair.

"What do you _want_ , Joe?" Billy's breathing heavily and his voice is rough and sexy, a sandpaper counterpoint to his cock, wet and hot against Joe's stomach, both catching Joe and pushing him higher, closer.

He wants to be closer. He wants. This. Billy. Eclipse-eyed bastard. Everything. _Whattaya got?_

"You tell me," he says and Billy's closes his eyes for a long second, until Joe shoves up against him deliberately, jolting him. He blinks his eyes open and comes back grinning like the cat that got the canary fucking islands. He plants a hand on Joe's side and Joe huffs out a breath hard, hyper-aware of the touch, like a shock through his body, Billy's callused thumb brushes against one of the scratches on his chest, a rough little burn.

Billy stretches his hands above his head, sitting up on his knees, Joe watches him, thin and taught a guitar string, rolling his hips when Joe's squeezes his ass and digs his fingers in just a bit. Billy's cock jerks obscenely in thin air because he fucking loves Joe's eyes on him (Billy fuckin' Showoff). He gets off on it, on how bad Joe fucking wants to open him up and crawl inside, on how Joe want to live in his fucking guts.

"You want to _fuck_ me," Billy says, bringing his arms down and pressing his hands against Joe's chest, palms flat. Joe takes him in from hard dick to hard smile, full of teeth and the remnants of the argument and anger he'd swallowed before starting this.

Billy grabs his wrist and pulls one of his hands away from his ass, tugs Joe's hand up to his lips and Joe goes from unresisting to active the second his fingertips touch Billy's bottom lip. He presses two fingers in, Billy's hand still around his wrist, fingers squeezing and urging him on, letting him in.

They watch each other, Joe's fingers curling against Billy's tongue and Billy sucking hot and wet, tongue moving against the pads of Joe's fingertips. They both rub against each other, feedback loop of wanting and wanted; spit-wet fingers conducting sex.

The sound when Joe tugs his fingers out is obscene, the red wet jut of Billy's bottom lip, but none of it quite matches the feeling when Billy pulls at Joe's wrist and leans forward so Joe's fingers find his ass, slide against hot skin, slip and bump wet against his hole.

Joe's done this before with chicks, the best that one time she'd said _fuck yeah_ after he'd eaten her out, everything slippery and slick from her cunt and his lips, and maybe he'd thought of Billy, yeah, when he turned her over on the floor of the van and fucked her.

Billy's hot and _tight_ and he groans as Joe slips a finger in up to the knuckle, forehead against Joe's neck, leaning on him heavily. Joe squeezes Billy's ass with his other hand just fucks him like that for a while. Fucks him and feels him, until he slips two fingers in and it starts feeling like he needs more slick, spit. Billy groans against his neck when he pulls his fingers out slow, a half-pained, half-wanting sound that jerks Joe by the heart and the balls.

That's fucking it: he's fucking done unless he gets his cock inside him _now_.

“Sit up,” he says and his voice comes out a rough ruin, like he's just screamed the set of his life. He spits in his own palm and holds it out to Billy (he's breathing hard, harder than Joe, and he's got teeth marks all over his lower lip. Joe has no idea which one of them put them there). Billy spits as well, and Joe urges him up so he can slick his cock with it, punk rock ass fucking, and he'd laugh if he weren't about to fucking blow.

Joe presses his dick against him and Billy lowers himself back, and Joe fights the violent urge to just shove further in, faster, harder. Billy stills on top of him and looks as cracked open as he is for a second, lost in Joe's hands, and he tries to move too soon, way too soon for either of them, and Joe grabs his hips hard enough it's got to hurt and stills him.

Billy's fingers dig into Joe's chest in automatic retaliation (unerringly into the red lines he's left there, like an x-marks the spot for where to dig his blunt fingernails in). He doesn't stop when Joe loosens his grip, finally feels like he's not going to come the second Billy moves. He lets Billy fuck himself in agonisingly slow moves of his hips, hissing between his teeth, until Joe feels as if his head's going to implode, his cock, his chest is going to tear open under Billy's fingers pressing against the little cracks in the surface.

He grits his teeth and digs his fingers into Billy's hips to flip them over. Billy looks up at him wide eyed, and he can't do anything but shove forward until they both groan, hard and fast and too fucking gone to give a fuck about anything now but _Billy Billy Billy_ and getting off.

Billy leaves welts down his back to match the ones across his chest, scratches hard at his skin with rough, blunt-nailed fingers, strong fucking fingers, guitarists fingers, tracing out wings across Joe's shoulder blades that he barely feels now except as another force pushing him towards the edge.

Joe's going pieces, yeah, and it feels fucking great to be balls deep and bleeding.

* * *

And in the morning, Joe picks up the phone by the bedside and calls Ed. And he says _yes_. Set it the fuck up. No, he hasn't had a fucking chaaaange of heeeeeart, Ed, you fucking lifetime movie fag. He looks over at Billy, naked back to bruised hips, pressing his face into Joe's pillow as he stretches. 


End file.
